In a bit of shameless self-promotion of my home institution, I wanted to highlight that LSU's Laborde Energy Law Center has now been officially launched. You can check out the new website here. The Center was made possible in large part by a gift from LSU Law graduate John P. Laborde, who graciously gave the largest gift to the law school in its history. The Laborde Center will have many missions, but its academic programming will focus in large part on providing students practical training and experiential learning opportunities in the area of energy law prior to graduation, including (but not limited to): field trips to energy facilities to learn about the regulatory compliance and other obligations of those industries; white papers informing the broader legal community of timely energy and environmental legal issues; a speaker series with prominent speakers from both the state of Louisiana and nationally; a concentration program in energy law with expanded energy and environmental course offerings; collaboration with the newly formed LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources to put on a yearly symposium; development of networking and internship opportunities for students in the energy law field; development of robust interdisciplinary curricular and experiential learning opportunities with programs on main campus (such as Geology,
Petroleum Engineering, Nuclear Sciences, Coastal Sciences, Environmental
Science, Business, and Chemical Engineering).

We are very excited about the center and hope that it will be a resource that the broader energy and environmental law communities can turn to for expertise in the field. Below is the vision statement of the Laborde Energy Law Center:

The twenty-first century presents no challenge to Louisiana,
the United States, and indeed the global community greater than that of
producing and distributing energy in an effective, safe, equitable and
environmentally sound fashion. To meet
this challenge, decision-makers in both the private and public sectors
increasingly must rely on attorneys with a sophisticated understanding of the
energy industry and the legal and regulatory framework with which the industry
operates, in Louisiana and beyond. In
recognition of this need, the LSU Law Center has created the LSU John P.
Laborde Energy Law Center that will serve as a leading focal point for
educating highly skilled attorneys deeply grounded in the law, business and
science of twenty-first century energy in all of its manifestations.

Legal and regulatory issues surrounding the energy industry
have become increasingly complex and specialized over the past 30 years as new
forms of energy have emerged and regulation of the energy sector has increased.
In this context, the demand for legal professionals with a broad, deep and
interdisciplinary background in energy law will only grow more pressing. To
meet this demand, the Energy Law Center will work to provide superlative
preparation for “client ready” attorneys ready to meet the needs of our State
and the broader national community.

The Energy Law Center will provide an integrative,
multidisciplinary approach to energy law specialization that will complement
and add to cutting-edge thinking about legal education. Our graduates pursuing specialization in the
energy sector will be “prepared for practice” and ready to assist with complex
projects involving teams of interdisciplinary professionals in the energy
industry.

The interdisciplinary mission of the Energy Law Center will
provide an additional link between LSU Law and other LSU campuses and
disciplines, such as geology, geophysics, biology engineering, and
finance. The Center will also provide
new opportunities to build relationships with other interested organizations in
the state and across the nation.

Fundamentally, there is no state that is more appropriate
for housing such a center, no state in greater need of a comprehensive Energy
Law Center, than Louisiana, and no law school better positioned to foster such
a center than LSU Law.

Below is a Call for Papers that inspires critical, big-picture thinking. Among the possible topics, conference organizers have included the following environmentally-related ones:

Population and shifting demographics—opportunities and rhetorical strategies

Capture and the regulated state

The economy, class and energy policy

Class, race, climate change and the environment

The contracting state, private governance and the emergence of a new feudalism?

The dysfunctional corporate food sytem

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ClassCrits VI: Stuck in Forward? Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political

Sponsored by Southwestern Law School & U.C. Davis School of Law, Los Angeles, CA, November 15-16, 2013

Excerpt from the Call for Papers:

"What are the possibilities and alternatives for a genuinely progressive economic project in an age of resurgent neoliberal policies and politics, worldwide shifts in population and demographics, and hegemonic economics? How can we address the challenges of our age including, but not limited to: globalization; shifting power relationships between the developed world and formerly “third world” countries; massive intergenerational and upward transfers of wealth; abject poverty; staggering debt; wage stagnation; a declining middle class; an increasingly dysfunctional food system; and environmental and climate risks that will require concerted national and international efforts. Stuck in Forward? Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political will address these questions by bringing together scholars, economists, activists, policymakers, and others to critically examine and take stock of who wins, who loses, how the law facilitates the hierarchical and spatial distribution of winners and losers, and how we may use law and politics to develop both real and utopian interstitial spaces of classlessness within the new post-recession global order."

Proposal Submission Procedure and EXTENDED Deadline

Please submit your proposal by email to classcrits@gmail.comby May 15, 2013. Proposals should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation and contact information, the title of the paper to be presented, and an abstract of the paper to be presented of no more than 750 words. Junior scholar submissions for works in progress should be clearly marked as “JUNIOR SCHOLAR WORK IN PROGRESS PROPOSAL.”

Recently, one of my colleagues faced a dilemma involving submissions. Two months ago, he agreed to publish an article in a top specialty journal. It was late in the submission season and he was somewhat naive about the process, so he didn't realize any journals might still be considering the article, and he didn't withdraw the submission from other law reviews. To his surprise, a top law review recently expressed interest. What to do?

I'm curious how other colleagues (and law review editors) have handled this situation. Of course, the best answer is to avoid the situation entirely by withdrawing your submission everywhere else immediately upon accepting a journal's publication offer. But that clearly doesn't alert every journal--most years, I get a few rejections, and occasionally an inquiry, from journals I withdrew from weeks earlier--and I've heard of two other instances where this situation arose. In both, the initial offeror retained the article. But I'm wondering if that's a typical resolution.